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Benes and Locarno: Some Unpublished Documents
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
On january 20, 1925, the German Foreign Minister, Gustav Stresemann, handed* a memorandum to the British Ambassador, Lord D'Abernon, stating the willingness of Germany to conclude a pact guaranteeing the territorial status quo on the Rhine and her readiness to enter into a multilateral agreement for the purpose of securing peace between Germany and France. He repeated this proposal in the famous memorandum of February 9, 1925, presented to the French Government. True, his overture amounted to no more than a revival in a modified form of the Cuno offer of December, 1922, but it was put forward at a far more opportune moment when the Powers, having settled for the time being the thorny questsion of reparations, turned to tackling the pressing problem of security, realizing that without security Europe could not expect the return of confidence and peace.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1958
References
* The author acknowledges gratefully the support and assistance extended by the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, to this study.
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